The invention relates to methods and apparatus for detecting and correcting errors in information signals. More specifically, the invention relates to the detection and correction of spelling errors.
In text processing apparatus, such as dedicated word processors or word processing programs which are run on general purpose digital computers, it is desirable to provide automatic detection and correction of spelling errors. Most spelling error detection apparatus and programs check each word in a text against the entries in a spelling dictionary. Words in the text which are not found in the spelling dictionary are assumed to be misspelled. The misspelled words are identified to the text processing operator by, for example, highlighting the word on a display device. Sometimes candidate words having spellings similar to the misspelled word are also displayed to the operator as proposed corrections.
The known apparatus and methods for detecting and correcting spelling errors have several deficiencies. Most importantly, the known apparatus and methods cannot detect a "wrong word" erroneous spelling (where the erroneous spelling is itself a word in the spelling dictionary but is not the word that was intended).
Moreover, even where the erroneous spelling does not appear in the spelling dictionary, the prior apparatus and methods provide no means or only limited means for ranking alternative candidates for the correct spelling.